The Platform Expos are a unique combination of education, entertainment & employment. Our impressive speaker roster combines these three key points, showcasing not only the excitement of the games industry but also how, through education and guidance from the business community, there are real career opportunities and the chance to work together to create sustainable employment and prosperity.

Charles Cecil MBE, Managing Director, Revolution Software “Adventures in videogame development”
Revolution has written some of world’s bestselling and most popular adventure games. The companyís best-known series, Broken Sword, has sold millions of copies around the world on every format from the PlayStation to iPhone. Charles Cecil MBE discusses where the games industry came from, the profound changes that are taking place now which allows anyone to create a hit, and what the future holds.

Mark Jawdoszak, Director, Gaslight Games “Gaming beyond controllers”
Gaslight Games’ core focus is on creating games that use ‘non-standard’
input devices, from Wacom tablets, touchscreens and into motion control and Kinect for Xbox 360. This session will discuss the future of control, input mechanics and how they can be better integrated to make games that are more fun.

Stewart Gilray, CEO, Just Add Water Ltd
“Oddworld: Past. Present & Future”
Just Add Water has for the past few years been working with legendary games creator Lorne Lanning on the Oddworld franchise, reviving and updating classic games such as Oddworld: Strangerís Wrath for PlayStation 3. This session looks at the history of Oddworld and what lies next for this much-loved series.

A two day workshop led by Hugh Adamson (Co Founder of LTBL Productions) in the Wilberforce building, lecture rooms 21 and 22.

LTBL Productions are an independent production company, creatively clever and technically talented.

Specialising in Short Films and Feature Films, Music Videos, Events & Promotional Videos, Video for Private & Public Sectors, Community Productions.

“Cloud Gaming and the Future”
How cloud gaming and OnLive’s streaming games service is revolutionising the games industry. The session will also give all attendees the chance to win one of ten OnLive games consoles.

Miles grew up in rural Northamptonshire and began learning the saxophone at 11 years of age under the tutorship of celebrated British jazz saxophonist Alan Wakeman. During this time Miles developed an interest in both music composition and jazz and began arranging and composing large-scale works for Big Band in addition to pieces for duets and solo instruments.

This years upcoming projects include providing additional music for a number of live shows produced by Sirius Creation, including The Spirit of Titanic: a centenary concert series in tribute to RMS titanic. Miles will be composing music for the concert series, to be performed by the Bourne orchestra in Belfast, Cobh and London.

Miles is also currently composing the music for Embers of Caerus, a new MMO-RPG PC game being developed by Texas-based Forsaken Studios.

Intellectual Property and Gaming
Andrew Jackson has offices in Hull and Grimsby, their client base is local, regional, national and international and covers a breadth of legal areas, specialist sectors and expertise.
Intellectual Property rights can affect;
name and/or logo;
website;
designs
inventions
bespoke software
advertising literature; and
customer database;
The proper management and exploitation of your intellectual property can add substantial value to your business, give you a competitive edge and avoid unnecessary disputes.

Marie is a partner of Andrew Jackson and heads up the specialist Commercial and Intellectual Property team at the firm and will explain what intellectual property is, why it is of such importance to the gaming industry, what steps can be taken to protect intellectual property and what gamers should be aware of if presented with a licence agreement from a large entity to exploit their ideas.

www.andrewjackson.co.uk
Twitter – @Law_Specialists
FB – Andrew Jackson – The Law Specialists

Rabbit Heart is a game concept based around the character of a young girl, called Ululu, lost in a strange world of flying galleons, tentacled monsters & abandoned cities, whose only ally is a semi-sentient Exo-Suit that reminds her of the toy rabbit she had lost.

The Rabbit Heart Game is a collaborative educational project led by Gareth Sleightholme & Paul Starkey being used to show students how to pull a games project together, with the intention of eventually publishing the recorded design process as a book including Concept Art and Mini-projects and tutorial ideas for use in teaching games design.

Find out more at: rabbitheartgame.wordpress.com

OM are UK and US voice recording experts. We are the UK’s most experienced dialogue production team working with video games. We are specialists providing casting, script, localisation, directing, recording and post production services. We’re celebrating our 16th year in business and we’re fast approaching our 500th production.

Steve Ince is an award-nominated Writer-Designer with 18 years of game development experience.

Starting out as an artist at Revolution Software, he moved over to production before settling into a writing and design role. He has played an important part in the success of a number of critically acclaimed games, including Beneath a Steel Sky, Broken Sword and In Cold Blood.

“UK auteur filmmaker K D Barker will discuss the fascinating but precarious journey of producing a low-budget feature length retro science film film. Barker will also look at how the Internet has become even more pertinent in redefining the distribution models for independent filmmakers outside the established Hollywood cartels.”

Avalore Studios is an independent studio specialising in mobile design & development. We’re creative problem solvers, experienced developers and passionate trainers developing talent in-house where possible. All of our work is completed in-house, keeping a close eye on progress and quality. Specialising in mobile platforms means experience and skill can be difficult to find, which is why we are consistently training in-house as well as forging links with local education to fill this need.

Arif Majothi of Arif Games (creator of the popular Anaksha series) will be sharing his knowledge on storytelling and creating emotion within video games

” MissyTetra is a UK based award-winning cosplayer and model, and will be enthusiastically bouncing her way through various talks and lectures including:

1. What is Cosplay? (For those of you that have never encountered this fascinating world before, she will be talking about the what, whys and hows surrounding this developing convention subculture.)

2. Cosplay Construction Camp (Attennn-SHUN! Welcome to bootcamp! Drill sergeant Missy Tetra will be training new Cosplay recruits! Bring a notebook and jot down info from this lecture on fabrication of a costume from cotton to plastic, foam to framework, and we’ll finish up with full breakdown of a costume on hand!)

3. Cosplay Q & A (Got a niggling question, or just want to hear about everyone else’s cosplay problems? Autie-Tetra asks all cosplayers, old and new, and anyone with silly questions that demand answers, to come along to this open forum where we can discuss cosplay in all its disaster and glory. If latex moustaches confound you, or if you just have no idea what it’s called when someone wears a full-covering suit made of lycra, or if you just want to ask the cosplay collective what exactly it is that makes them tick, pop along and have a cup of tea and biscuits with us!)

MissyTetra will also be leading a Masquerade Masterclass for all cosplay masquerade entrants, which is useful if it’s your first time on the big cosplay stage! She will also be taking a vote on other panels to cover. If you’d like to request a panel related to anime, manga, cosplay, or general Japanese culture, please email platform@missytetra.co.uk.

Sonia Leong is a professional comic artist and illustrator who specialises in the manga style. She’s famous for “Manga Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet” which won “Best Books for Young Adults” “Quick Picks for the Reluctant Reader” by the young adult library services. She has since published a large variety of manga artwork, contributed to various compilations of tattoo art, manga art, and how-to guides, and is an avid gamer and manga-fan as well as an illustrator. She’ll be leading 2 workshops at Platform 2012 so please make a space for her in the speakers programme!

1. Introduction to Manga (overall look, history, theory and techniques, the industry, myself and my career path.

2. Manga Artwork in Depth (character design and proportions, expressions, and visual grammar, page layout)

Lawrence “MasakoX” Simpson is one of the members of TeamFourStar, the group behind Dragonball Z Abridged. In it he voices the characters Goku, Gohan and Master Roshi. Outside of his work with TeamFourStar, he has been part of other abridged series such as Naruto Abridged, Kampfer Abridged and the abridged OVAs of Fatal Fury. He also reviews anime both good and bad in his show for That Guy With The Glasses titled Anifile, the series MasaVox in which he showed you the basics of online voice acting as well as many small gaming show projects. He also is a budding voice actor with many credits in fan projects since he started recording back in 2005. In all, MasakoX is a guy who likes to keep himself busy with loads of projects and provide a wide range of content for his fans.

MasakoX Q&A: Giving you his full attention, MasakoX will be leading a 1 hour Q&A session for you all to prod and poke at his knowledge of abridging, voice acting, past life and current experience, and all the squidgy bits of brain-matter in between.

Voice Acting Online 101: Ever wanted to try your voice out in a fandub, or just interested to know the methods and processes behind it? MasakoX will be letting us all in on his tricky little secrets from taking the initial steps to the voice acting online world to microphones, techniques, and handy tips in this 1 hour 101 crash class!

Anifile Live – The Great Debate!: MasakoX’s popular Anifile show comes live to Platform Expo 2012! Get your debate on and sharpen your tongues for a half-hour of Lawrence’s audience-participation debate panel where you’ll be able to have a healthy debate on some of the most hotly discussed topics in today’s anime world!

As well as hosting these amazing panels, MasakoX will also be co-presenting the Cosplay

Masquerade, so be sure not to miss it!

DestinyBlue is a full time artist specialising in the anime style, she travels all over the UK exhibiting, teaching and drawing. Having taught manga drawing with BBC blast she will be hosting two draw along workshops where you can learn through drawing.

How to draw anime:
This workshop starts from the basics of constructing anime character before going onto more complex tips and techniques used by the pros. It teaches the use and importance of guidelines to help you get features places correctly, how to draw and shade consistently good anime eyes and how to make sure you get those body proportions right. Its draw along so not only will you take your new skills home with you but a piece of art as well!

Drawing Q and A:
Hopeless at hair? Struggle with shading? Freak out at folds? Well now’s your chance to get help with your problem points! In this dedicated session questions come from the audience, DestinyBlue will answer and help with problem areas, drawing explanations of some of the trickier things to get right and explaining ideas behind the creative process. Questions are welcomed about all areas of art making, from concept to character, composition to colouring. What would you like to know?

www.aidforjapan.org.uk
www.akemisolloway.com

Akemi Solloway is the daughter of an old samurai family and enthusiastically brings a massive slice of Japanese life to our shores. She passionately teaches about the intruiging culture of both traditional and modern day Japan. This esteemed guest, attending on behalf of www.aidforjapan.co.uk will be leading workshops and speaking on:

1. Bushido and Shinto (The days of the samurai may be long gone, but the influence of the way of the warrior lives on! Learn all about the mysterious historical world of the samurai. Shinto is the indigenous religion of Japan. Discover a whole new world in this 1 hour long lecture.)

2. Kimono: How to wear & History (Sensei teaches all about the iconic Japanese garment including how to wear it, the various bedazzling knots of the obi belt, and how to move around in these glorious artworks in this enlightening 1 hour workshop.)

3. Tea ceremony – the art and philosophy including demonstration (Ever played a samurai game and wondered what all the passing of teacups was about? Put down your sword and pick up your teacup and learn about the very symbolic tea ceremony, or chanoyu, rooted deep within the traditions of Japan. Not only does possibly represent anything from diplomacy to relaxation, philosophy to ritual, Sensei also believes that an understanding of tea ceremony can lead to better understanding of the Japanese view of the world! After an hour of tea ceremony, you will be thirsty for a refreshing drink of tea!)

4. Japanese Language of Anime (Ever wanted to learn Japanese? Come along to Akemi’s 1hr30min workshop and learn the fun way, with anime as your guide! A fun and practical lesson will leave you shouting “kawaii desu!” in the Marketplace!)

Akemi will be taking donations on the day for her charity and we ask you all to please donate whatever you can spare for the orphans of Japan from the goodness of your hearts and in appreciation of her fascinating lectures.